35. Instep Icebreaker Indoor Marathon

I did it again. I'm not going to say it was pretty, but I finished another marathon. Our family made it up to Milwaukee to see Matt's family for the weekend and we capped it off with a marathon. What better way can there be to finish off a weekend visit?

We started off the weekend at Monkey Joe's. The kids all enjoyed their stay until...Monkey Joe appeared. All of the kids except Hannah seemed to ignore him. Hannah freaked out for the rest of the day. Here's the face she kept for quite awhile.

Now all we have to say is, "Do you want us to go get the monkey?" and it works better than any other punishment we tried to use before. Just kidding!

After Monkey Joe's, we headed back to Matt's and I really wasn't feeling too good. I spent the rest of the day with Kleenex in hand and trying out other medications to get myself better for the race the following day. I went to bed feeling terrible and slept horrible. I got up at 2 a.m. to throw-up and finally decided at 6 a.m. that I was up for the day. Matt and I made it over to the Pettit Center and got everything in place for the race. After the race got started, I felt better, but not great. Matt got a good laugh out of me after I pointed out that my shoe had come untied in the first lap. Talk about lack of preparation! I did feel pretty good after the race started and actually had a decent time in the first half. It all went downhill after that. The second half was really rough. I stopped to try to throw up a few times but nothing happened. It got better when Melissa showed up with the girls. They were the motivation that I needed. I am not saying I ran faster, I just was motivated to run more than I was walking. My legs were dead and my body was incredibly sore. I just kept plugging away.

With about 12 laps left, I started running with the guy behind me. His name was Matt and he is a chiropractor from Columbus. We definitely pushed each other to get to the finish line. I was happy that we came across each other to push to get the run over with.

As I got down to the final 4 laps, they went really "fast". It was so exciting each time I ran around to have the numbers get so low. When I got to the final stretch, I sprinted to the finish line. It felt great. I walked over to get my medal and then found the girls and gave them a big hug.

Melissa and Gretchen made signs with the kids before they made it over to cheer Matt and me on.

We all got up on the podium for a picture afterward.

Looking back two days later, it was a good experience. At the moment it was rough, but it is another accomplishment that no one can ever take away from me!